


There Is Nothing

by ForWantOfWill



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 13:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2152794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForWantOfWill/pseuds/ForWantOfWill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing.<br/>I am nothing.<br/>But with Loki, I am something.<br/>It’s only with him that I dare to find solace.</p>
<p>Set before "Thor"</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is Nothing

There is nothing.

            I am nothing.

            But with Loki, I am something.

            It’s only with him that I dare to find solace.

            I wait for night to fall first, lain out like a blanket over Asgard, holes worn through the fabric as light dribbles through like water. He had told me about those stars once, about how many millions there were, the constellations like the scattering of glitter on table cloth left after a ball, shimmering in the moon light, forgotten. The stars remind me of him. Tonight, it is not enough to merely look- I want to fly though them.

            Walking to the small, stained mirror, drying my tear-streaked skin. Rosy, burning, my skin is as hot as the simmering in my chest, an incandescent flame flickering through all that I am, eating me from the inside out. This is all there is. I have possession over one thing; the one thing I am incapable of caring for, helping, protecting- myself. I have the inability to own. Hopefully, Loki has the ability enough for the both of us.

            *

            One o’clock in the morning. The servant’s outfit, my hair pulled into a ribbon, arms clutching at my chest to hold the pieces of myself together.

            It’s not working.

            *

            I reach Loki’s door and knock tentatively. There is shuffling, curiosity leaching into the hallway, and then the clunk of hand on handle. Loki opens the door, peeps his head round, green eyes ablaze in the hallway’s firelight, and I only now wonder if he’d even want me here.

            “Y/n?” and still his voice is velvet and honey, even in whispers. Concern laced in his brow, question marks on his lips as he opens the door further, holding a hand out to me, inviting me in. I smile; or I try. I’m not sure how quickly the tears start falling again.

            *

            “Loki?”

            He sits with his back to me, the headrest of his armchair guarding him from my view. Not that I need to see him to know his tears, know the anguish and discomfort that hangs so heavy between us I don’t know how much longer my lungs will hold out. I’m not quite sure I want them too.

            I’ve told him everything I could about today; about the way I carved into my skin, how the tears fell and the emptiness grew and that broken glass was the only thing to hand, watched his face fall as he sighed  and turned away with wet eyes. How my heart squeezed tightly and he walked from me. Hugging my knees I sit on the edge of his bed, waiting. For what, I don’t know- either way I need to hear his voice again, like falling snow and the warmest of nights, because the silence deafens me. I curl further into myself until he talks. Bury my face in my arms.

            “Why?” Cold, dead. My breath catches, tears swell in my throat. There are no reasons. No solid, empirical reasons that I can even hope to explain, yet so many. With Loki here, my reasons are petty, ridiculous.

            “I needed to,” I whisper into my knees, blinking wet from my eyes.

            _No, you didn’t._

            Its as if I can feel Loki’s jaw clench, the blood quickening in his veins as he inhales deeply, and he’s so angry when he has no goddamn right to be-

            When I need anything but this.

            “You _needed_ to?” he barely spits, his tongue bitter sharp like the glass that broke the flesh of my ankle, and not for the first time. Just like my wounds, he stings me. Unravelling from the inside out, nothing anyone can do about it because I’m lost, but instead my heart splits in two from the pain I’m causing him-

            It’s all I ever do-

            _(And why did I come here?-)_

            And I hate him for caring.

            Loki rises, turns to face me. I move to stifle sobs in my elbow but it’s too late and a half cry half moan tumbles from my lips, as pitiful as a kitten’s mew, and I can’t stop myself. Tears well, cooling over my cheeks, and through my blurred vision Loki walks to me with pursed lips and faded features. I don’t look at him.

            Stopping when his knees meet the bed; he stands, he watches. Trembling, locking up the sobs that try to rake through me, I watch his hands. Clenching, unclenching, his knuckles turning to bone, the tendons slinking up his arms as his muscles tense. _I’ve hurt him so much-_

            “Look at me,” he demands. I don’t. I can’t-

            And in a blur Loki has hold of my arm, pulling it from my face, and I scold myself for yelping. His gaze is unrelenting, inescapable, the torture I find almost begging me to look away. “You did not need to do this to yourself,” he says. Looking into his eyes, it’s funny how I believe him. Green and deep and honest, he has me captured, and this is all I wanted- to be a prisoner, for someone else to have ownership over me because I can’t grant it myself. I don’t want to look away because I’m home, and no matter how angry or disappointed or sad these eyes are, they are mine. They’re beautiful; they’re Loki.

            “I wasn’t asking for permission,” I say, “I just wanted to let you know- I thought that’s what you’d want-”

            “As selfish as it may be, what I want,” and Loki’s at the point of shouting, his voice splitting as though the words burn him, “is for the one person I love to stop treating herself like she’s nothing!”

            The world stops.

            There is nothing, and there is everything.

I watch him, watch as the anger in his eyes simmers, dissipates, realisation dawning on him as it knocks me over like a wave, and slowly he withdraws his grasp from my arm, face softening, casts his eyes down. Stomach feels lighter than air.

“You’ve never told me that before,” I whisper, not sure whether the words even pass my lips. I know they do, because he takes my hands in his, caressing the skin with his thumbs, holding as if I might shatter beneath him. And in all honesty, I might.   

“Then maybe I should have,” he says. I look away.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” I mutter to myself mostly as I turn from him, leaving the bed and heading to the window, the stars burning my thoughts. I don’t know what to think anymore. I just feel, the thoughts that appear so naturally in my conscience, and they tell me I need punishment so I grant it myself-

He couldn’t have stopped me. This is what hurts most.

“I know,” replies Loki, quiet and almost disappointed, “and I wish I could change how you feel, but I can’t. I’m sorry.” All traces of anger gone, and all I know is how much he’s hurting because of me. I swallow the thickness in my throat.

The soft pad of Loki’s footsteps moves until I feel him behind me. Softly, gently, his hand falls on my shoulder, thumb painting circles on my skin, and the capacity to allow myself to love him fully is just out of reach. “I pray you forgive me for my anger,” Loki whispers, “and thank you for having the courage to tell me. Don’t harm yourself without letting me know. Please, please.” He brushes the hair from my neck, winds his arms around my waist, touching his lips to the shell of my ear. For the first time in forever, I feel safe. I feel wanted for all I am.

I need him to possess me entirely.

*

Loki takes me to the bed, sits me down whilst he goes to the bathroom, bringing out a bowl of water, a cloth, bandages. When he asks where I cut myself, I pull the hem of my skirt up, just enough to see the marred, broken flesh on my ankle. Neat slices, efficient and purposeful, red raw skin and blood stains; all I am. He kneels before me, doesn’t flinch, nor does he grimace- he manages to dampen the shame I feel at the core of myself, as if I just tripped, fell, grazed my knee and there is nothing more to it. I wish there wasn’t. But as Loki cleans my wounds, mopping up droplets of blood still oozing, maybe I don’t have to be alone in this.

I watch his face as he bandages my ankle, deft fingers gliding over my skin, brow furrowed, lips pressed in a line. Handsome features; the way light glances off his cheekbones, eyes ablaze, how his usually slicked hair falls in strands to his forehead, like night against the pale moon. Tentatively, hesitantly, I brush the hair from his eyes. The silky touch against my fingertips, almost as soft as the smile he gives me. I return it.

“Thank you,” I say, “for everything.”

“I only wish I could do more,” Loki mutters, smoothing the bandage in place before sitting beside me. The bed sinks where he sits and I find myself leaning to him, a pull almost as compelling as the self hatred trickling through my veins, and as I rest my head on his shoulder, solidity beneath the soft leather of his tunic, the warmth that cradles me seems enough to hold me together forever. He takes my hands into his lap, and I close my eyes, and I am okay. I’m okay. Each tick of the clock, each breath he takes, slowing until time stops. A little pocket in the universe, and there is me and him, and nothing else matters.  

“Is this the only time?” he asks, his cool fingers playing with my own, touching and caressing and entwining. Carefully; he does everything with care.

“No,” I reply. There is a thickness in my throat, and I map the scars etched in my body and mind, each one tightening my chest a little more. My eyes squeeze. I will not cry. The skin on my ankle was a new canvas- my hips, my thighs, my stomach baring the old brush strokes that whither but never fade, blossoms of scars that litter my being in places no one will look, little secrets that hold me together, and I will shatter if they’re revealed.

Except to maybe Loki.

“It started before I knew you,” I whisper, afraid of scaring this moment away, “before I knew you properly, anyway.” And I don’t know what it is- the touch of his skin, the pressing of his lips to my forehead- but I tell him all I can. “I just feel so lonely and hopeless. And worthless. Everything I do, _anything_ I do, it’s just not enough. Even when we became friends, and you would let me keep you company and we would talk and I would tell you these things, I couldn’t tell you everything because you didn’t need this. You deserve so much better than _this_.” Loki sighs, a broken huff of air as he lifts my chin to meet his eyes, glassy with tears and concern and _love_ , and it’s enough to freeze my thoughts but I have to keep going- “and I wish I could be more for you. I do, because you’re the only thing I can bring myself to care about. To love. But I can’t be who you need, and I’m sorry.” And I mean it. With all that I am. I’m sorry for being this way. I’m sorry for hurting myself and for loving him and for him loving me, and I’m sorry for this Goddamn illness that plagues me and hates me and _is_ me. “Loki, you’re a _Prince_ , for god’s sake, and I’m a girl who can’t even take care of herself.”

He is silent, but he doesn’t need to talk. I can feel everything he feels, everything he thinks through his eyes, the way he smiles that sad smile of his, the hand that reaches for my face and the thumb that caresses my cheek. He won’t let this go. Leaning into his touch, I know I don’t want him to.

But he needs to.

He needs to let go of me.

Loki shifts, facing me properly, no escape from his gaze as it locks on my own eyes. “Then let me take care of you,” he says, “until you can take care of yourself.” He says it like I’ll get better, like there is light at the end of this tunnel instead of the nothingness I know is there. Still, I find myself nodding. Because with him, maybe there can be something instead of nothing. Maybe I can be someone. Just maybe. Building within me is the silence, the weight between us that doesn’t tug but lulls, keeping me grounded, solid and real. I grasp the hand in his lap with both of mine. I am lost in his eyes, and there is no way out, and I don’t care. Loki brings my face closer; his breath fans my lips. He moves close, close enough to rest his forehead against mine, looking down at me from his height before closing his eyes-

“What I said before is true, [y/n],” Loki’s lips brushing ever so lightly against mine, lighter than a moth’s wing against my skin, and I resist every impulse I have to close the slightest distance between us and kiss him. “I love you, for all that you are.”

He kisses me. And I let him.

Cool, soft, his lips take mine slowly until he has pulled away again, too soon. Hands trembling less than I’m sure they should, my arms wind around Loki’s neck, and he smiles, truly and honestly. “I love you, too.” My voice slips and slides, tears welling in my eyes again because _Gods, how I love him-_

There is nothing, and there is everything. This is all I need.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, apologies for a terrible title. I wrote this because I kind of needed it, so here it is in all its cheesy, fluffy prowess. Loki is my homeboy. Possible smut to ensue.


End file.
